AFSCME, the National Education Association, and SEIU Target Democrats in “Jobs Not Cuts” Ads

THERE’S A campaign not so quietly growing in volume, with Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh the loudest, that has Republicans having a hissy fit over Obama’s proposed tax increases for the wealthiest. Rush is using the Santa Claus line, a take off on O’Reilly’s people want stuff belch, but both are focused on making people believe that entitlements are evil, with O’Reilly’s campaign stating falsely that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid make this country “weak.” Juxtaposed against this is a union coalition ad campaign that defends the importance of safety net programs, while emphasizing that growth is the only answer, which begins with jobs, but also education.

The campaign against WalMart on Black Friday, which Joyce has been writing about, was the target Tuesday on Fox News Channel, as Stuart Varney did his best to make a striking worker representative in a phone interview feel guilty for standing up for better pay and benefits at the megastore.

Part of why the recent actions are so remarkable is that Wal-Mart is one of the most notoriously anti-union companies in the country. Based in right-to-work Arkansas, the retailer has maintained an almost entirely union-free workforce for most of its existence, even once resorting to shutting down a store in Quebec shortly after a successful union drive there. The company has never before dealt with coordinated labor protest on this scale. “In the past, Wal-Mart would fire people, would threaten people “¦ and that would be enough to stop people in their tracks,” said Dan Schlademan, director of Making Change at Walmart, another organization backed by the UFCW which works closely with OUR Walmart. “The difference now is workers are using Wal-Mart’s own tactics to challenge the company and not backing down. Really, for the first time in Wal-Mart’s history, the tools that are used to keep people silent and under control are now being used against them. That’s significant.” – Wal-Mart: Always Low Wages

You’d think O’Reilly, Limbaugh and Varney would understand the moral importance of making sure your average American worker has a chance as the very definition of the American dream. Instead, their job is to protect the 1%, as the 99% get a smaller and smaller piece of the pie.

Bill O’Reilly has become so frustrated with Mitt Romney’s loss and the general disrespect the Fox News bloviator is receiving for his outlandish Election Night “people want stuff” analysis, that on Tuesday he targeted Senator Bernie Sanders, the biggest hero the working class has in the Senate.

Well, that is until Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren comes to town.

In the midst of this is President Obama, who is planning a nationwide tour to make the case for his fiscal scheme, which remains a threat to the working class, because of his 2011 offer to Speaker Boehner that served up Social Security, which is not part of our economic problem.

Make no mistake: The valiant budget negotiators at work in Congress and the White House are mapping out a plan for economic austerity under the guise of “getting our house in order.” This is despite blindingly obvious evidence that what’s needed in the U.S. today is the opposite ““ more stimulus to jump-start job creation, and more spending on infrastructure from roads and bridges to communications and electrical grids. Do you doubt that? Then look at the paragon of post-crash austerity: Europe. Harsh budget cuts in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, along with austere fiscal regimes in France and Britain, have pushed the Eurozone back into recession. – Michael Hiltzik [LA Times]

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7 Comments

fangio
November 21, 2012 at 1:24 am

O’Reilly and hog face are both multi-millionaires, and like most multi-millionaires these days, they are greedy pigs who care about nothing but themselves. You know, in all the weeping over Twinkies, one interesting piece of history is almost always left out. Hostess was bought by a private equity firm several years back and loaded up with debt. Since then the executives have raised their pay 300 percent while the rank and file have been asked for one give back after another. The workers union, in this case, has been awful both in it’s representation and it’s tactical approach with management. Unions in general should start calling a spade a spade, they should attack, head on, the big lie of private equity and what it has done to this country. They have been too silent and too weak and have let the wealthy control the conversation. Trickle down economics does work: the money trickles down into the pockets of the wealthy. People like O’Reilly and hog face are the biggest takers of them all; I bet they take advantage of every single tax loophole we so generously give them, so that in the end they pay no tax at all.

Jane Austen
November 21, 2012 at 7:00 am

And how do these guys get the tax loopholes? Why our congress gives them out like candy. Where are the tax loopholes for the “average American.?”

TPAZ
November 21, 2012 at 5:04 am

I say fight fire with fire. Instead of passive “jobs” type ads go with a “corporation want stuff analysis” including 1. How much in entitlement tax breaks at the state and local level do corporations receive to open a business anywhere? 2. How much in entitlement tax breaks do corporations receive on municipal sports facilities over the last 30 years? 3. Remind voters that these entitlement tax breaks for corporation did not always exist.

As for O’Reilly, he went after Mary K Hamm the other night when she argued he & Romney were wrong. Angry white man who cannot accept the world has changed & the 99% won’t be quiet anymore.

Hope people watch the 2nd video. It is great.

davboz
November 21, 2012 at 4:31 pm

SEIU (and similar) are children. Spoiled ones.
to FANGIO: The greatest harm to the individuals comes from the union itself. Great numbers of union members who will, out of personal helplessness, follow the image and example presented by the “leaders”, are likely those who’ve grown up without the example of a lucid, self-supporting, cognitively well-adjusted adult in their childhood experience. Over the last couple generations this ratio has grown higher and higher thereby allowing, by default, the dominance of self-described “progressives”, socialists, communists, with the bulk of them being of no real, thought-out philosophy – just those who seize upon the talking-points that, to them, seem to be individually relevant. So, fueled by every Alinskyite tactic of agitators (community organizers/union leaders) they render slow degradation and destruction to the last, best hope in the world of humans.
—And Taylor?…. uh girl, when you are in full-blown relapse, you are NOT in recovery.
Maybe get back to the steps, hmm?

davboz
November 21, 2012 at 4:41 pm

Hopefully some daring D.A.’s will start charging with economic terrorism in certain situations!

The only “economic terrorism” that exists is through companies like WalMart. Unions made the middle class and the reason it is being squeezed is because unions haven’t found a way to be effective in the face of globalization. That’s not a partisan issue, it’s a fact that affects all people, regardless of party.

Hey, but thanks for stopping by, even if you’re analysis is wrong *and* unhinged.